Anything Political Deleted

Some of you may be wondering where Heidi has been. She has been doing a lot of this along with her daily movement from one sleeping spot to another throughout the day. She will have sudden bursts of energy, running a few laps around the house inside. Of course she took a walk yesterday afternoon only because I didn't have my camera with me. She's good.

Monday morning Stella had other ideas on how we should start our week. I admit, I did see some very tiny rain drops hitting the back of my camera and it had rained most of the morning before we attempted to walk. She wasn't going anywhere yesterday. She turned and went back to the door as I followed her back inside without any morning walk.

Today was different. I'm sitting here mid-morning with all the windows open with a slight breeze and a lot of bird activity. I think I saw them building a nest in my front gutter yesterday afternoon. They are going to have to find a different spot because anything like a nest in my gutter will be removed this afternoon as I pull out my ladder to do some checking.

I'll wait for the sun and wind to dry out the front yard, so my plans to mow just the front will not take place until late afternoon. I'll start by cutting it a little high this spring so it will build a nice root system.

I've got some other yard maintenance plans today. I'll pull any weeds out of the mulched areas, pick up all the small sapling limbs I cut along the driveway bank a few weeks ago. I need to add a bag or two of rock down by the mailbox and I might even find enough time or energy to wash the car today. The weather is just that nice to get a lot done outside today.

I must say the NCAA Basketball Tournament was very enjoyable this year. Too much replay reviews for me, just like it has become in all the other sports, college or pro levels. After that last reversal with a little more than a minute to go in the game last night I was fed up with replay. If you have to take 5 minutes to decide if that pinky finger just barely touched the basketball as it was batted away by the opponent BUT DON'T call the foul right before .. then something is drastically wrong.

Just like calling balls and strikes in baseball. Sure the ball is coming across the plate above 90mph most of the time but that is why they are a professionals. They are able, supposedly, to call balls and strikes for high speed baseballs. Studies over the last 11 years of baseball has proven that basically umpires behind the plate simply suck at their jobs.

Oh ... the blog post title today.

I mentioned the other day I was thinking of getting rid of any blogs, or websites, even twitter accounts, that dealt with politics, immigration, Washington D.C, refugees in the USA and Sharia Law in the USA ... well I did.

I didn't have many that I followed on Twitter since I use that mostly for sports news. I didn't follow politicians but a few people I did follow did, so political crap would show up if the person either retweeted something political or was in a Twitter argument.

On my Blogger blog's sidebar I had the four links I mentioned in my last post here and deleted all of them. I had a couple of the same links tucked away in my Feedly Reader account and deleted them there also.

It was a GREAT decision to get rid of all that crap. And that is what it is ... crap.


So without those links anywhere in my online world and still not tuning into tv news ... I feel much better. I wasn't stressed out by the news but I thought way too much about what I was hearing or reading ... now I can think about the hounds, summer, the to do list, etc without all the noise from D.C. I do glance at the headlines online but that is as far as I go. It  shows me I am not missing anything.

I filled up a couple of hounds mitts worth of hound hair out of Stella again on Monday. I follow that up with the small rake with the metal tongues to pull out more of that undercoat that wants to get out. Stella loves being brushed.

The book I am reading about the start of Top Gun is a really interesting book. My first four years in the Navy were at NAS Miramar where Top Gun originated. I worked in a squadron of F-14's at the time. Great location, a LOT of traveling and every day seemed busier than busy. If you are interested in the history of Naval Aviation, it's a good book to pick up at the library or off of a bookstore shelf.

I'll leave you with the rest of the photos I took on this morning's walk. I've run out of things to say. Plus I find it hard to sit in front of this computer with such great weather outside. All of these photos were taken straight from the Canon G9 X, without any editing. I am slightly surprised that I like that camera more than my Nikon D3200.

Really nice weather so far this month in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Hounds Settle Into Spring

I wasn't sure any walks would be taken today when we woke up to a steady rain. Even Stella did not want to go outside the first time I opened the door to start our daily routine. It was nice to finally sleep with the windows open and hear the rain just outside the window. It looks like the farmer has a new low spot in his field near the back.

Just a little sign of how much it rained overnight. It was nothing major but it was a factor for Stella. When I grabbed the camera and said "come on, let's go", she didn't move from her sitting position next to the island. By the time I took the first photo of the field across the highway, she was at the door wanting to be let outside.

With a slight hesitation, she finally stepped outside and once she felt the wet grass, moved over to the river rock to follow the side of the house. You will see that she took a different route this morning ... what is strange, it is the same route whenever it has rained.

I was going to let her go where she wanted and I'd follow. I was just happy the rain had stopped long enough for us to get a walk in this morning. I had plans to go grocery shopping, that would take place right after we finished.

I am still locked into my 'diet', which is not really a diet but a way of eating long term. Like I have said before, it is not really much different from what I have done for the past five years. I have cut out dairy products though and can tell a difference as well as moderation on steak, pizza, or cheeseburgers. I've only had one of those three, a pizza, the past month.

Still I caught myself again Friday going back through all my notes, bookmarked websites and shopping lists to see which direction I want to go in my eating plans. I stayed with what I am doing with low fat, 30% protein and 55% carbs, while keepign around 1,550 calories per day.

Stella was on her own this morning and she wasn't waiting around for me. She was not eating deer scat, nor was she doing much exploring but steady continuous walking. It was almost like she was getting a workout in. With her winter coat shedding, I combed out three large metal brushes full of undercoat yesterday afternoon.  Heidi hardly sheds at all in comparison.

Stella's pink John Deere collar was getting too small so I went back to an older collar I had hanging inside a closet door. I think she might have worn this bright red one before. She doesn't like it when I take her collar off, she likes wearing one, where Heidi only wears her's when she goes to the vet.

Will Heidi show up outside today long enough for me to take some photos of her?

Just before we got to the first corner of the field, Stella moved over to our regular path, where I can walk and she can inspect the edge of the field and woods.

From the first corner all the way to the back, the path was this wet with a lot of standing water. You can bet your last dollar that it will be impossible to get Heidi on any kind of walk today and possibly for the next few days until the path dries out.

Besides thinking about my diet, I have also been thinking about deleting some of the blogs from my reading list. Those would be the ones I added to my list here a few months ago. You might remember them ... Frauds, Crooks and Criminals, Creeping Sharia, Kunstler's Blog, and The Market Ticker.

Yes, all of them keep you updated on what is going on behind the scenes, rarely reported by the mainstream media. Some of their news is quite alarming, a little scary and concerning. Others are just their opinions but the one consistent thing about all of them ... there isn't a damn thing I can do personally to stop what is going on, or control what is going on in the world today.

After a while I just get tired of reading about or listening to all the bullshit surrounding politics, illegal immigrants, muslims wanting their way of life to be in control as well as their sharia laws and the abuses of Medicaid and Medicare along with food stamps and welfare. Basically the generosity of this country has been and is being taken advantage of and that will not stop until someone gets some guts and does something about it.

Will all of this affect me and the hounds living here in bumb*** Egypt ? Most likely not. I compare it to the increase in crime, gang activity, drugs and the attempt at being a sanctuary city only 25 miles from me. I know it's there, but that is not here. We already have a meth problem in this area and have for years and that has not affected the hounds and I ... so ....

I think it's time to delete those blogs and set them aside with the deleted tv news in my house and continue to feel much better without bullshit running around my brain cells. I'd rather read books, work in the yard, do house projects and hang out with the hounds instead of hearing and analyzing the bullshit called tv news and the changing of the country. Maybe I can hide out away from it for the next 30 years and never have it affect me.

Speaking of book reading, yes I am still reading the book about Steve Jobs but I picked up a couple of new books at the library on Friday. Top Gun written by the founder of the Navy's Topgun flight program. You might remember the movie about it from the mid 1980's. Another book is interesting after reading only a few pages. It's called The Light Years by Chris Rush. Just after a couple of pages Sunday night I lost all interest in this book and stopped reading it. I picked up the book about Topgun and couldn't put it down.

With the NCAA Basketball tournament finishing up, there hasn't been a lot of time to read. Plus major league baseball has started so that fills in the gaps during the week nights. I do not sit and watch the baseball game's every pitch but will have it on in the background and will tune in if something exciting is happening. A lot of times I can read with the sound turned off and the games on.

Today will be one of those days. Reading, game on, windows open, with the hounds sleeping.

Stella took her time this morning but by the time I stopped my Apple Watch "outdoor walking" tracker ... we had walked our normal 16 minutes and for .53 of a mile.

Not only does my watch tell me when to get off my ass and out of my desk chair to stand up and walk around, but Stella does a great job getting me outside for a little exercise. She is not as demanding as Sadie was, but there are times when Stella will come to get me if she is in the mood to take the walk.

There was no sniffing around the trees this morning. She never stopped one time to check on anything ... she kept on walking, right around the corner of the house and straight to the door. She must have known I had to go buy some food.

All I will say about my shopping trip is ... stupidity was at its finest this morning. I was glad to get back in my car and get home without an accident due to someone else's fault. I swear I really wonder what people are thinking sometimes ...

Still ... it's another fine day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.